T-Mobile will be only US carrier to offer 'HD Voice' on Apple's iPhone 5

At a media event announcing its new payment plans and 4G network on Tuesday, T-Mobile was certain to point out that it will be the only U.S. carrier offering high-fidelity voice transmissions with the iPhone 5.

The iPhone will arrive April 12 on T-Mobile's network, along with the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and a range of other smartphones. Making the announcement Tuesday, T-Mobile CEO John Legere pointed out that the iPhone 5 will support the carrier's branded "HD Voice" calling  a feature that T-Mobile took nationwide earlier this year.

HD Voice, T-Mobile says, is a dramatic improvement over current in-call voice quality standards. The feature requires that both parties on a call use a T-Mobile 4G smartphone and be connected to either the carrier's 3G, 4G HSPA+, or 4G LTE network.

Legere, calling the iPhone's appearance on T-Mobile the start of a "long relationship," said that Apple's phone will have access to 50 percent more bandwidth on T-Mobile's network than it will on AT&T. The iPhone 5 on T-Mobile will work across all three layers of the carrier's network, including the 1900MHz spectrum, AWS spectrum, and LTE.

Legere pointed out other benefits he said T-Mobile customers will get. Compared to a two-year contract with AT&T, T-Mobile customers will save $1,000 over the same period, according to Legere.

The iPhone 5 will arrive on T-Mobile's network on April 12 for $99 with 20 additional monthly payments of $20. Apple's iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S will also be available, but only select markets and channels.

I'm all for anything that removes the subconscious belief now ingrained in society that hearing someone through a telephone implies lower-quality audio than that which we're hearing otherwise in whatever media we're consuming.

But it actually has to be better to do that. It has been almost ONE HUNDRED FORTY YEARS and call quality is still below that of a face to face conversation.

Translation: T-Mobile will be the only carrier in the United States on which one could make a f---ing voice call.

And they support WiFi voice calling and WiFi TXT when there is poor cell signal.

Their coverage map seems broken at the moment but as I recall it is not as widespread as AT&T and Verizon. if you can make WiFi calls that might be enough to offset their lack of cell signal in some areas, although I'm not sure how you would receive a call but maybe you can.

The feature requires that both parties on a call use a T-Mobile 4G smartphone and be connected to either the carrier's 3G, 4G HSPA+, or 4G LTE network.

So like pushing higher and higher PPI even though most folks are half blind, this feature will be pointless for most. I feel for the folks at Apple dealing with call quality complaints and having to explain that the whole HQ doesn't work with your mother who is on Verizon etc So long as these are the same phones as the AT&T I'm cool. Boss buys our phones unlocked so we can take them to our studio in Australia no issues

1) 50% more bandwidth? Really? Considering they only have 7 cities where LTE will work with the iPhone 5 that seems disingenuous. Now they could mean bandwidth as "a range of frequencies within a given band" instead of the more colloquial data rate but that is doubly disingenuous in this context..

2) Save $1000 over 2 years? Seeing as how the subsidy is much less than other US carriers it seems the only way that can be true is if you are comparing uneven services and access.

3.a) HD Voice is simply ITU-T's G.722.2 standard. It's not new but it is uncommon for mobile network operators to use. It's more commonly used in intranetwork VoIP setups because it does result in a natural sounding voice since it does use the higher and lower range of what the human voice is capable of. Unfortunately, you do need to have this throughout the entire chain.

3.b) What Wikipedia has to say about it is accurate: "Wideband audio is an audio technology used in telephony. It extends the frequency range of audio signals transmitted over telephone lines, resulting in higher quality speech. The range of the human voice extends from 80 Hz to 14 kHz but traditional, voiceband or narrowband telephone calls limit audio frequencies to the range of 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz. Wideband audio relaxes the bandwidth limitation and transmits in the audio frequency range of 50 Hz to 7 kHz or higher."

3.c) I'd like for other carriers to adopt this. It does require more voice overhead as which can slow down speed of the vice traffic but I think people are using voice calls less and I thin the rate at which they have grown out their networks probably means they can support it. It would be nice to get higher quality calls like we had in the analog phone days.

I don't believe HD voice is part of the kitchen sink list of features on the Galaxy S4?

I don't think that would have nothing to do with the device. The handset can negotiate a range of voice codecs from the carrier. Plus, if one link in a call doesn't support it the whole thing goes to the weakest encode.